Thursday, 19 July 2012

Cycling the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail - Fernvale to Lowood

Location - Sth-east Queensland, AustraliaRide: Fernvale to Lowood, QLDDistance: 29.9 kmTerrain: Compacted dirt.Difficulty: Tough - recent rain turned much of the trail to mud.Highlights: Just being out in the countryside.

We are in Ipswich - WOW the country - no tall buidlings - trees - cows - cheap chinese food - NO TRAFFIC.

We have come to cycle the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail.

Day 1 - Plan A was to cycle from Fernvale to Lowood and then on to Cominya, 40 kms in all. Before the road bikers all fall about laughing just remember that 40 ks on a mountain bike is a lot more effort than 40 ks on a road bike.

Hitting this at speed was probably a mistake!

As usual Plan A turned into Plan Z. The going was a lot tougher than we expected. It had rained in the weeks before our arrival and there was a lot of water about. The trail was very heavy. There was absolutely no free run in the bikes and from time to time we had to ford small creeks. Hitting them at speed and hoping to keep our feet dry turned out to be a mistake when D got wet feet and a puncture just north of Lowood - exit Plan A. By the time he had repaired the puncture we decided to call it a day and turned around - 30 ks round trip - not bad for heavy conditions.